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Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, who spoke just before the President yesterday evening at an interfaith service in Newtown, Ct., said Obama told him that Friday had been the most difficult day of his presidency. For Obama, the mass shooting that left 20 six- and seven-year olds and seven adults dead, this was an incident that struck close to his heart, both as a father and as the leader of a country that has seen four mass shootings since he took office four years ago. His speech yesterday was a test of how the President would manage the precarious balancing act of serving as the nation’s consoler-in-chief while also leading on public policy changes that could somehow block a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

The President is extremely skilled at the consoler job. He knows how to make his message personal, empathetic and powerfully uplifting all at once, quoting choice bits of scripture to maximum effect and personalizing heartbreak by expressing his own feelings and the universal emotions of being a parent. As consolation, he said, “I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts. I can only hope that it helps for you to know, that you’re not alone in your grief. That our world, too, has been torn apart.”

I am not a religious person but I found the President’s biblical quote at the beginning of the speech deeply moving: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands.”

The President also talked about how the adults killed in the tragedy, Dawn Hocksprung ,Mary Sherlach, Vicki Soto, Lauren Russeau, Rachel Davino and Anne Marie Murphy, had all acted heroically, giving their lives in an effort to save the children at Sandy Hook Elementary. He talked about the spirit and heroism of the teachers and the children who survived and even managed a note of levity, quoting a child who reassured a grown-up by saying, “I know karate, so it’s OK. I’ll lead the way out.”

Then the President made an artful turn. He talked about how the community of Newtown has inspired the nation, as people have reached out to one another with love and care. Then he addressed the responsibilities of parenthood, how having a child is “like having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around.” From there he moved to the notion that we all bear responsibility for every child “because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours.” That sense of shared responsibility laid the groundwork for the policy section of his speech, describing what it means to meet the obligation of caring for our children and our fellow citizens.

“We’re not doing enough,” said the President. “And we will have to change.” He went on, “Surely we can do better than this.” It can be politically toxic to try to make any progress on gun legislation, given the power of the gun lobby and Americans’ fierce determination to be able to own all kinds of lethal weapons. But Obama seemed to suggest he would support a renewal of an assault weapons ban that would prevent people from buying firearms like the military-style Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic rifle, which gunned down the children in Newtown.

Obama didn’t spend much time on the notion that he was going to pass new laws or institute policy changes. The mental health question is an especially thorny one. Though we can all agree that there should be services available, it’s difficult to imagine how expanded mental health services would have helped a young man who was reportedly from a family that had financial means and a mother who had apparently devoted herself to his care, home-schooling him and staying home in an effort to make his troubled life more tolerable.

Still, the President committed to doing something. Perhaps the most powerful line in the speech was this simple statement: “Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

Obama’s words seemed to be laying a foundation for new legislation and renewed efforts to enforce the gun laws that exist. If he can achieve those things, this country will be a safer place. But it will be a struggle to find legislation that can block a mentally disturbed young person with access to legally procured guns from committing another atrocity.

In the absence of a policy prescription that could prevent another Newtown, the President turned back to consolation, talking about the awesome responsibility we all bear to take care of our children. Then he did a simple, powerfully moving thing. He read out the names of all of the children killed on Friday, to audible wails and crying from the audience.

The reception to the President’s speech has been almost all positive. In the usual quarters that would be prone to criticize, there was only praise. Though on Fox News, Charles Krauthammer pronounced the speech “highly political,” he could hardly get specific about what he meant. On the National Review website, there is a piece suggesting that schools would be safer if staff could be armed and a thoughtful story by D.J. Jaffe about changes in mental health law that could protect the public from the violent mentally ill. But no critiques of the Presidents words.

David Frum has a piece on CNN.com saying that if the President takes on gun control at the Congressional level, he could chip away at the political capital he needs to pass other crucial legislation, like a tax plan to avoid the fiscal cliff. Frum also thinks that a move for gun control needs to come from the grassroots, not from the political arena.

In combing through commentary, I find no one who suggests the President’s remarks yesterday were not eloquent and consoling. By staying away from any specific policy proposals, he avoided the minefield of an immediate attack by the gun lobby or the potentially thorny civil liberties questions posed by increased scrutiny of people with mental illness. He struck exactly the right tone at a time of national tragedy and led us all into the conversation we need to have about how we can prevent another mass shooting.